Bernie Ecclestone has likened Bahrain’s anti-government protesters, who on
Sunday detonated a car bomb in the capital city Manama, to “those
complaining about Mrs Thatcher”.

The 82-year-old, Formula One's commercial rights holder, risked enraging activists opposed to next Sunday’s grand prix in the troubled Gulf kingdom with his comparison between their claims of police brutality and Left-wing campaigners seeking to disrupt Baroness Thatcher’s funeral procession on Wednesday.

Attending his first race of the season in China, Ecclestone urged reporters to “tell the truth” about Bahrain as he continued to insist he had no concerns about hosting the event in the strife-torn country this weekend.

But his parallel with the demonstrations in London since Lady Thatcher’s death threatened to enrage Bahraini anti-government groups, after the car explosion in Manama late on Sunday night.

The attack took place in the city’s Financial Harbour district, with a militant group calling itself the February 14 movement declaring that it was responsible. Bahrain’s Ministry of the Interior claimed there had been no casualties.

Villagers in poorer Shi’ite areas away from the Sakhir circuit are also alleging that King Hamad’s regime is using the money from F1 to enforce further repression.

Ecclestone said: “I don’t think the people who are arguing about their position are bad, and I don’t think they’re trying to hurt people to make their point. We have had all sorts of protesters – look at those complaining about Mrs Thatcher. This happens all the time. People use these things when there is an opportunity.”

Attempting to reassure the race’s opponents that the political situation is less volatile than 12 months ago, when Force India mechanics narrowly escaped being struck by a Molotov cocktail, Ecclestone argued: “The big problem, from what I can see, is that you have a set of people who want to have more of a say in the way the country is being run. It’s probably like our country, England, there are sectors there who sees things the other side are doing wrong and would like things done their way. It happens worldwide.”

His view appeared at odds with an account from Bahrain on Monday reporting tense skirmishes in the village of Al-Ahli. Amani Ali, a 22-year-old female student, was quoted as saying of the grand prix: “Of course we are against it. The race brings money to the regime, which they use to buy weapons and attack us.”

Although Sunday’s race is almost certain to go ahead, two years after it was cancelled at the height of Bahrain’s violently-suppressed revolution, political momentum in Britain is also gathering against the event.

On Tuesday Andy Slaughter MP and Lord Avebury will host a briefing at the House of Lords on behalf of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Bahrain.

The group said that Bahrain had descended “deeper into a political crisis” and “any remaining principles or values of human rights are being trampled upon by Formula One as they prepare to take the sport, yet again, to a country which at present is a controversial and unsuitable location for any competition”.

The group highlighted allegations that in 2011 Bahrainis employed for this leg of the championship experienced torture at the circuit.

They said on Monday: “F1 insisted on holding last year’s grand prix and Bahrainis were killed, tortured and detained when they protested.” And they asked: “Is a country that at present is suppressing the rights of its people, and using sheer brute force to intimidate them, a place for sport of any kind?”

Ecclestone, though, remains defiant, stressing that he has already met members of main opposition movement, Al-Wefaq, in an effort to ease anxieties over F1’s presence.

“When you talk to the person who represents the protesters, that person is very sensible and down to earth, and understands that both sides may be wrong,” he said.

“When I was there last year he said, ‘I think we’ve more or less come to an understanding’. We are reasonably happy about that. Whether they have agreed or not, I don’t know, but you will always get people that will want to make riots anyway.”

But Richard Burden MP has accused Ecclestone of a flippancy about Bahrain’s problems, maintaining that the F1 chief’s stance “is not what I am hearing, that either the race does go ahead or if it does, there will be trouble”.

Damon Hill, the former world champion, has expressed grave worry about F1 being “hijacked” by Bahraini authorities and implicitly endorsing ruthless police tactics by travelling there. Extra barbed wire and security fencing have been introduced this year around the Sakhir track.

Samir Rajab, a government spokesman, said: “The security situation is very reassuring.” But her remarks were immediately contradicted both by the explosion in Manama and by hordes of demonstrators close to the airport chanting, “Down with the government. Sooner or later the people will achieve victory.”